[meldrewreborn]

@TBox

OK. Do you have the opening reading from when you moved in? Can you take a reading now? If its a smart meter can you log in to your online account and get some accurate readings.

Because if your bills are being estimated (or your DD has been estimated on the basis of what the previous occupants used) then what you are paying and what you are actually consuming might be totally dislocated. Accurate data is need before all else.

I'm assuming it is a smart meter (because it has a blank screen) and I'm thinking you haven't read it manually before (because you don't know how to do i) No Problem!!. It might be worthwhile using the in home display to monitor consumption and using the Bright app to get access to more data. Having said that we've no evidence the smart meter is fully functional yet -hopefully it will be, because if not you are going to need a lot of help on this one.

[wizzo227]

3500 kWh in a month is as much gas as I've used in the past two years. Gas cooking is negligible by comparison; <60 kWh per month expected and that is doing hours of serious cooking most days; enough to warm up the kitchen a lot. My gas combi boiler (sold as a "24" kW type by one of the reputable combi gas boiler manufacturers) uses <16kW of gas while the flame is burning at normal speed for central heating and >30kW while boost kicks in while hot water is running. That is, your bill is just about possible from my boiler if it were constantly burning gas for the central heating for about 7 hours per day every day. My house would severely overheat in two hours with that much gas heating. If your house did not overheat then we should do some testing. In the morning "several hours", do you hear the boiler flame and exhaust fan, and do those stay on for the whole time?
N -> test for gas leaks on the house side of the meter or the meter number creeping up continually
Y -> test for boiler condition :
Underneath the boiler find from the manufacturer instruction sheet which pipes are central heating return from the house (to boiler inlet) and the boiler outlet.
(caution -could be v.hot) how hot is the boiler outlet five mintes after start of the morning burn and one hour after start ?

Last question: is it possible that your gas central heating tries to switch on, opens the gas tap and runs the flue exhaust fan for 7 hours per day, but forgot to ignite? In the past few days I've used no gas heating at all. Literally none.

[TBox]

Thanks all so very much! Looks like I need to do some detective work. I'll crack on and do what's recommended above & report back. Your help is so much appreciated.

[Mailman]

Originally Posted by TBox

Hi All & thank you for your patience in considering my question.
We moved house last October & are now using gas for the first time to run central heating off a combi boiler & fuel a 5 ring hob.
Heating is on for a couple of hours in the morning & 4 hours in the evening. We are spending nigh on £257 per month on gas/3500 kWh.
I'm just gobsmacked at the usage & - while I'd love to think there's a fault somewhere - just wanted to ask if that usage is considered normal for 2 people in a medium sized house?

Just to query what temperature setting do you have your thermostat on? What is your boiler flow temperature set at? What sort of temperatures greet you when you get up first thing in the morning?

My thermosat is generally set to 17C @ 0830, 17.5C from 1215, 18C from 1600 till 2200.

Boiler and DHW temps ATM set to 60C but that may well go down in the coming months to possibly as low as 50C during summer.

My Baxi combi-boiler is 10 years old.

Winter temperatures inside the house (2 bed bungalow in the NE) have been no lower than 13.5C during winter. Today was 15.5C and the boiler fired up for circa 45-60 mins this morning and the boiler switched off when the temperature tipped 17.5C. Some early sunshine then saw the temp go up to 19.5C. Yesterday was very similar but stayed sunnier for longer and saw 13.33 kWh of gas used (no cooking) and a low usage figure for this month. Lounge during the evening was up to 19.5C and comfortable. We are frugal in our use of gas (in January we used 1234 kWh Gas).

[wizzo227]

Originally Posted by Mailman

We are frugal in our use of gas (in January we used 1234 kWh Gas).

In February, one person working from home, in 21/28 days in, my whole house including cooking used 10 cubic meters of gas (yes. The old gasmeters show m^3). Multiplying by about 11.2 converts from m^3 to kWh so my house used about

112 kWh of gas in February 2024.

I think I'm getting more than ten times better score than the guy with the tiny solar thermal not from any special efforts by myself but from the intrinsic low loss of the two up two down mid terraced house layout. I have a front wall and a back wall and not a lot else of exposed outside perimeter. Heat pump heating using the air conditioner while there is at least some free solar electricity from the solar panels on the roof used less than 40 kWh of electricity in February (by plug in energy monitor on that three pin socket). How much heat that brought into the living room air depends on the air conditioner CoP which isn't measureable and is probably near 2.4 That still adds up to less than 200 kWh in February of delivered heating. Temperatures have been comparable to Mailman except for running the living room to as warm as possible throughout sunny afternoons, which presumably warms up the walls for later, with the living room door open to allow that heat to circulate upstairs and to particular rooms. I kept the bathroom door mostly shut because its window was mostly open. I never saw indoor temperatures below 13C after the coldest nights (in unspectacular central southern England), and 19C was daytime usual in whichever rooms I were in.

So, if your heating bill is unavoidably too high, consider moving house. There is much advantage to mid-terraced and downsized.

[Mailman]

Originally Posted by wizzo227

So, if your heating bill is unavoidably too high, consider moving house. There is much advantage to mid-terraced and downsized.

From an energy point of view you are undoubtedly correct if you have good insulation and have the kind of setup that you do.

From my personal POV moving to a semi-detached bungalow (in a better area) has its compensations in many different aspects - that is why we moved after all just over 2 years ago. A lovely garden space that is our private space, a garage (although cannot get car in it🤣), neighbours that are not anti-social and last but not least no stairs to climb up. This is where I want to live for the rest of my life.

I'll shut my mouth in future mentioning frugality of gas consumption 🤐 although I'm guessing you just use your gas for cooking , maybe DHW but almost certainly no CH although I'm more than happy to be corrected . Without trawling through this thread I'm guessing many of the respondants. like myself, use gas for both DHW and CH (and posssibly cooking too). Apples and pears etc.

We all have different circumstances with different needs leading to wildly differing numbers 👍.

[retrotecchie]

@Mailman

There is also a big difference with number of household occupants, lifestyles and your fuel options. Plus whether or not you prefer hair shirts or regard comfort as important.

I use no gas at all (not on gas grid) so my heating options are oil or wood. Wood grows on trees and I've done a lot of arboriculture on my land so running 3.2kW and a 4.8kW wood stoves costs me little or nothing. My oil usage since the beginning of the month is 10 litres, or about 110kWh. That's with me being in the house most of the time. It's also a detached 18thC stone-built cottage so that comes with it's own challenges, but being able to enjoy 4 acres of reasonably productive land has compensations. The trade off is something I'm happy with. Savings on my food bills and not racking up so many food-miles is a reasonable compromise for me.

[meldrewreborn]

@wizzo227

as the guy with the tiny solar thermal, I’d just like to reiterate that the setup cost me only £500 many moons ago and has repaid the capital outlay several times over.

I’ve looked at PV panels , their costs and benefits, but given my best oriented roof is already occupied their installation doesn’t make much financial sense. The really big issue in doing the sums is the saving in future energy costs, where a crystal ball works imperfectly.

Once one has taken the plunge it all becomes easier to consider the pros and cons. I wouldn’t recommend solar thermal because if one pays a full non subsidised price the payback period is far too long. But l like endless hot water most days in the summer.
you clearly love you PV solar, and gear your consumption of electricity around the availability of free energy. I think that’s great.

but we’re not all alike, and our decisions reflect our own situations, what is important to us and the cost of making the change.

in the news recently there have been suggestions that elderly home owners should get a stamp duty exemption to encourage them to downsize, thus helping younger people move up the housing ladder. It’s recognition that moving home can be very expensive, and those older people are staying put because of multiple factors including the cost of moving. Suggesting moving home to cut down on energy costs might be sensible in some cases but probably not to many. I don’t think the EPC rating of a property factors much in movers decisions.

[Tommysgirl]

@Mailman @retrotecchie @meldrewreborn

Well said lads!. Excellent comments and observations. 👍

[meldrewreborn]

@Tommysgirl

it takes one to know one!